GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE 159

I would myself give all the bushes-not to say all the trees-and all the seas, of Claude and Poussin, in one bunch and one deluge-for this little rose-bush and its bottle.

44. “The Presentation in the Temple.” Signed “Victor Carpaccio, 1510.” From the Church of St. Job.

You have no similar leave, however, good general spectator, to find fault with anything here! You may measure yourself, outside and in,-your religion, your taste, your knowledge of art, your knowledge of men and things,-by the quantity of admiration which honestly, after due time given, you can feel for this picture.

You are not required to think the Madonna pretty, or to receive the same religious delight from the conception of the scene, which you would rightly receive from Angelico, Filippo Lippi, or Perugino. This is essentially Venetian,-prosaic matter of fact,-retaining its supreme common-sense through all enthusiasm.

Nor are you required to think this a first-rate work in Venetian colour. This is the best picture in the Academy precisely because it is not the best piece of colour there;-because the great master has subdued his own main passion, and restrained his colour-faculty, though the best in Venice, that you might not say the moment you came before the picture, as you do of the Paris Bordone,¹ “What a piece of colour!”

To Paris, the Duke, the Senate, and the Miracle are all merely vehicles for flashes of scarlet and gold on marble and silk; but Carpaccio, in this picture of the Presentation, does not want you to think of his colour, but of your Christ.

To whom the Madonna also is subjected-to whom all is subjected: you will not find such another Infant Christ in Venice (but always look carefully at Paul Veronese’s,

¹ [No. 320 in Room X. (“The Fisherman presenting the Ring to the Doge”).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]